“Our research is now showing that those physical health disparities that were thought to be a function of personal behavior are often a function of racism” ( Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, online first publication, 2021). “Racist stressors really stick with you, and they can become racial trauma,” said Candice Hargons, PhD, a counseling psychologist at the University of Kentucky and the founder of the Center for Healing Racial Trauma. Psychologists who work with this population say there is much to be done to improve the mental health of Black women, ranging from expanding access to licensed professionals with experience in treating people of color to reducing incidents of racism and microaggressions. “Over the last 15 or 16 months, racism has been trauma, and that ability to compartmentalize has fallen by the wayside.”īlack women are also simultaneously affected by racism and sexism and may feel under pressure to hide their negative emotions lest they fall prey to the “angry Black woman” stereotype. “What we are seeing is that racism on its best days is a stressor, and Black women are often very good, or at least decent, at compartmentalizing that,” Neal-Barnett said. There is a pressing need to address this stress, said Angela Neal-Barnett, PhD, a clinical psychologist who is the director of the Program for Research on Anxiety Disorders among African Americans (PRADAA) at Kent State University and author of Soothe Your Nerves: The Black Woman’s Guide to Understanding and Overcoming Anxiety, Panic, and Fear (Touchstone, 2003). But even in this nationwide conversation, the challenges of Black women often go unmentioned-in part because Black women are often pigeonholed as strong caregivers and providers who shoulder others’ burdens and do not share their own.īut burnout and stress are rampant among Black women, especially as many absorb traumatizing news stories and grapple with personal experiences of police brutality and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on people of color. The murders of Black men such as George Floyd at the hands of the police have put systemic racism against the Black community into the center of the national discourse.
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